


After Dark

by ceywoozle



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Gen, random groping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:52:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceywoozle/pseuds/ceywoozle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything's easier in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Tumblr prompt from fuckyeahshezza, asking for intimate talks in the dark leading to some snogging.
> 
> This is actually a repost because I accidentally deleted it before. But it's back! It is not new! I apologise to everyone who already commented and left kudos on the first posting because I fail at life D':

It's dark when John opens his eyes and for a span of time, perhaps the thick pounding of half a dozen heartbeats, he is lost, adrift in rapid fire and explosions, the figure of a man sprawled on the sand in front of him, dark curls and white hands that John is too afraid to turn over.

But he knows this feeling, the terror, the ache. The images shift and trickle away like sand scooped between his fingers until he is left with nothing but a vague sense of unease and the determined rationalisation of a panic that comes from nowhere, that he doesn't understand.

The flash of a car driving past paints a bright line on the ceiling above him, the sound of its engine too loud in the dark room. A thin thread of cigarette smoke reaches him and just like that he knows where he is and panic recedes. John grunts, abruptly aware of every ache as he drags himself upright and looks towards the window.

Sherlock is a silhouette against the square of yellow light, a damp haze blurring the outlines of the building next door, softening the night and making it seem a bit too close. He can feel it pouring into the window and he feels a superstitious shiver run up his spine.

“Cold?” Sherlock says, the low drone of his voice coming at John like part of the fog, seeping into the flat and making the room seem to shrink. He watches the long hand come up and the glow of the cigarette, the thin stream of smoke against the yellow light.

“I thought you quit,” John says. He pulls himself upwards and stretches, feeling the pull of muscles and joints that he never used to feel pulling before and he knows he's getting old, knows it's just a matter of time before the aches turn into something more. “Jesus,” he sighs, stretching his arm across his chest, feeling the scar tissue on his shoulder pulling tightly. “I should know better than to fall asleep on the couch.”

There is silence from Sherlock, and John, feeling a stab of exasperation, makes himself shrug. He glances around, sees the stove clock glowing from the kitchen and subtracts an hour from when they hadn't switched it over from last daylight savings. For the hundredth time or so he contemplates finally doing it, but it's already mid-October. In a few more weeks he'd just have to switch it back anyhow.

He sighs and grimaces as his knee gives an unpleasant pop and considers the stairs. He needs to go to bed but he's awake now, if sore. The result of sleeping several hours in the late afternoon. He really should know better.

“Tea?” he asks Sherlock, already turning towards the kitchen.

Sherlock ignores him and John sighs. He considers making some anyway but at the last minute he veers to the top cupboard above the stove and reaches up without turning on the lights, feeling the smoothness of the glass bottle like a sedative in itself, and he pulls it down. He considers ice and decides against it, and at the last minute he considers glasses, too, but it's always a hassle finding glassware that won't kill him and in the end he simply takes the bottle and heads to his chair, slumping down into the indent he has spent the last years carving out with his body.

“Should you be drinking?” Sherlock asks.

“Should you be smoking?” John returns calmly, uncapping the bottle with a twist and pointedly bringing it to his lips.

He hears the soft chuckle from the window and watches the cigarette rise again, the end going momentarily bright, then the stream of smoke and the smell of tobacco and tar, heavy and stifling in the room.

Another car turns onto Baker Street and its light paints its passage across the room. John watches it slide away, the hum of its motor, turning the corner at the end of the street and fading.

“So?” Sherlock asks.

“Hm?”

“What's the occasion?”

John wonders if Sherlock's been having conversations while he's gone again. Or asleep. Does Sherlock talk to him while he sleeps? The thought send a frisson of speculative delight running through him and he vows to test the theory one day. Wonders if he'd be able to: fool Sherlock Holmes into thinking he's asleep...?

“The whiskey,” Sherlock says impatiently, pulling John out of his thoughts. “You never drink when you have a morning shift the next day.”

“Ah. That. No. Just...long evening nap on the sofa. Not exactly conducive to a good night's sleep. Whiskey makes me tired.”

“And the nightmares.”

Something in John freezes and he can feel his whole body tense up, the sudden pressure behind his eyes. “What about them?” he asks as casually as he can, and he knows that it's useless, that Sherlock can read every hitch of his breath, every blink of his eyes, but it doesn't stop John from trying.

“You're having them again. Ever since you left Mary.” There something in Sherlock's tone when he says her name that John's never heard before, something careful, as though he's testing some limit without understanding where it lies and John feels a stab of sudden relief because not even Sherlock Holmes knows everything. He gives a small huff of laughter and he can sense Sherlock tense, the sudden tightening of the line of his body standing against the light.

“What?” Sherlock snaps, tossing the half-smoked cigarette out the window and John watches the bright arc as it falls past the sill and out of sight.

“Nothing. Sorry,” John says, still smiling. “It's just weird.”

“What is?” Sherlock demands and the tone of his voice warns John of an impending sulk if he doesn't fix this soon.

“Just.” He stops, unsure how to say it. “You care,” he finally decides. “I mean, not about Mary. But you care that I might care. And that's...” he trails off, waving a helpless hand. “You know. Nice.”

“Nice.”

“Yes. It's nice. Thank you. For caring. About me, that is. Not about Mary. I know you don't care about Mary.”

There is a silence and John knows that Sherlock is weighing the words, looking for the truth and balancing it against the possibility of mockery, sensing traps in the spaces between sentences. It's never a certainty where he'll come down on the scale but John can see the gradual easing of the line of his body and a moment later he nods, his head just a shadow against the light from outside.

“You're welcome,” Sherlock says after several minutes of silence and John wants to laugh but the hesitance, the heartbreaking uncertainty of those words, makes him choke it back. He's aware, though, that he is far more visible to Sherlock right now than Sherlock is to him and he deliberately stands up, taking the bottle with him and goes over to the window where he slumps against the opposite wall from Sherlock, his face turned into the room, facing the dark with the light at his back and takes a long swallow from the bottle in his hand.

“It's funny,” he says, fighting the burn of the liquor and it slides down his throat, pooling hot in his belly. “Mum used to drink. All the time. She did it for the nightmares, too. After we finally got away from dad, anyway. Never did before that. I think she was afraid of not being able to protect us. Mind you, she never really could protect us even when she was sober.”

“Did you hate her?”

The question is abrupt and John's immediate reaction is confusion. He's not sure where it came from at all.

“Hate her? God, no. How could I? She hated herself enough for us all. It wasn't her fault, though, what he did to her, to Harry, to me. She was a tiny woman. I've never showed you a picture, have I?” He pauses and has to think for a minute. “I'm not sure I have a picture actually. Tiny, though. Shorter than I am.”

“No one is shorter than you are, John,” Sherlock says and his tone is soft, deliberately playful, and it's so unlike Sherlock Holmes that it takes John a long moment to react, but when he does he starts to giggle, the high pitched sound that always makes him feel like he's on the edge of hysteria. And maybe he is because Sherlock Holmes is standing in the dark and teasing him. The idea is so ludicrous but so oddly...joyful, that he starts laughing all over again.

Sherlock is grinning, the half of his mouth that John can see, the half that faces the window, is split into a wide smile and John knows that smile, has seen it directed at him only a handful of times but each occurrence is like a brand on his memory, seared into him, and for months after the jump off of St Bart's, the image of that smile was the only thing that had kept John going, the only thing that could convince him to summon up enough energy to get up, eat, find a job, sleep. The thought that of all the expressions he had ever seen on Sherlock's mobile face, that smile was the only one that had been for John and John alone.

“Christ, Sherlock,” he says turning so that he's facing him, the yellow haze of the London night overly bright in his right eye. He doesn't know what else to say so he says it again. “Christ, Sherlock.”

The grin fades, slipping down into a smile that quirks the edge of Sherlock's lips and softens his face in a way John can't even decipher because he's never seen that look on Sherlock's face before, a mixture of pride, joy affection, and all pointed at John, who turns his eyes away because he doesn't know how to interpret that look, has no idea what it's trying to say.

There is silence again, a heartbeat, two, three, and then Sherlock takes a breath.

“I do care,” he says, the words oddly rushed.

“What?” John is lost. He wonders once more about conversations while he's asleep before Sherlock speaks again.

“About Mary,” he says. “I do care.”

John shakes his head, can't even believe they're having this conversation after everything that's happened. “It's fine, Sherlock,” he says. “Seriously. Sherlock, listen to me. I know you don't feel these things the same way I do. Or, you know, anyone does. And it's fine. _You're_ fine. It's _all fine.”_

“No, John. I mean...no, I don't care about Mary. But I care...I care what she is to you. I care _what she did to you.”_

John is silent and for a moment he feels how Sherlock must feel all the time, the careful weighing of words, looking for the truth, picking out the irony, feeling carefully for the traps between the spaces. But there is nothing mocking in his tone nor in the way he is looking at John now, half his face illuminated with yellow, the other half shadowed by the room. But John can see his eyes, both of them, the earnest intensity of them and the straight, pursed line of his lips, and the traps...the traps are there if he looks for them, gaping wide and waiting.

“Okay.” John says, trying to return that look and failing because his eyes keep flickering away and he can feel the uncertainty beginning to swamp him. “Okay,” he says again and he throws another glance at Sherlock and he doesn't miss the way those eyes have latched onto him, the neck curving forwards, the line of those lips, no longer pursed but parted so slightly so that he can _hear_ the almost silent passage of breath between them. “Okay,” he says again and takes a deep breath, filling his lungs and letting it settle into his belly before exhaling carefully, slowly, and only then does he look up at Sherlock again. “Okay,” he says. “Sherlock. You need to tell me if it's not okay. Okay?”

Sherlock is staring at him and there is something in his eyes, something like doubt, like a challenge. “It's okay, John,” Sherlock says, and then with a quiet quirk of his lips, “I insist.”

And John knows that he never stood a chance. He takes that last small step between them and kisses him.

It's clumsy at first, Sherlock moving forward almost at the same time as John does so that Sherlock's lips end up somewhere on John's chin and there is a brief moment of self-conscious laughter, a huff of breath, and then they are once more moving towards each other, slower this time and then John can _taste_ him, the acrid smoke of cigarettes and the bitter flavour of coffee. He feels the crease of Sherlock's lips with his own, moving over them and mapping them out, the gentle thrust of jaw as John raises a hand and slides it around Sherlock's neck, pulling them more firmly together.

Sherlock is sighing, the smallest of noises that emerges with every exhalation and John's reaction to it is purely involuntary. He can feel the blood begin to pool and he is far too aware of the length of Sherlock pressed up against him and he gives a gasp, pulling back.

“Sherlock,” he says and he's panting, his breath coming shallow and short and Sherlock gives a groan, his face flushed and his breath heavy. “Sherlock, God, stop.”

Sherlock's eyes are dark and hooded they look at John, utterly frustrated. “Why?” he demands.

John actually laughs, an abrupt outburst that he immediately regrets because the look on Sherlock's face, the sudden shutting down like a light switch being flipped and the whole world going dark, sends a pang of familiar guilt running through him.

“No,” he says, quickly, reaching for Sherlock even as he can feel him pull away. “Listen, you stupid great git. I'm not laughing at you. Jesus. I'm...Jesus, Sherlock. Look at me. Does it look like I'm not enjoying myself?”

Sherlock pauses but John can see the hesitation, and he knows Sherlock so he knows that it's born almost entirely from a reluctance to be proved wrong and, exasperated, John grabs his hand, and before Sherlock can think to protest he pushes it low against his belly. He sees the dawning smirk on the pale narrow and then the smug curve of a wicked smile.

“Yes,” John says, giggling again, and he collapses forward, his forehead against the narrow chest. “Whatever it is you're thinking, exactly that.”

Sherlock is grinning again and John can feel it in the lips that descend to the top of his head. “You have work in the morning,” says that baritone and John feels it reverberate all the way down his spine.

“I know,” John sighs. “That's why we're stopping. And also, Sherlock, no more cigarettes. They taste bloody awful.”

There is a moment of silence where John can almost hear him thinking, then he feels Sherlock nod against him.

“Fine,” he agrees. “No more whiskey. Honestly, John, it's foul.”

John grins, suddenly aware that he's still holding the bottle. “Deal,” he says, and reaches over just far enough to pour it out the window.


End file.
